Thursday, December 9, 2010

Five Questions for Santa

Why do you hate me?
First of all, you’re imaginary - right? So why do you set such a high standard and show me up every year? I am the one person – well, one of many, including everyone in fourth grade at my kids’ school – who can destroy your mystique by being honest with my kids. Yet you seem unable to realize that it’s impossible for me to maintain the magic that my deeply adorable but totally ungrateful children expect from you – from us? Do you know what they’re expecting on Christmas morning? They expect Nirvana – and not the band. They expect a combination of total spiritual enlightenment and Disney World followed by a pancake breakfast. So far, the closest I can get is *possibly* smelling like teen spirit.

Can we discuss what is meant by “naughty,” and how that applies to adults?
Let me be specific – what is your position on the consumption of wine? Also, parents who yell at their kids but only when they’re on Facebook provoked and then they feel immediately really guilty about it? Is it considered naughty if you’re so bad at laundry that maybe once or twice your kids have had to wear opposite gender undies because there were no clean underpants in their gender specific dresser? Is it naughty to be a raging B to your husband because he stomped around getting ready for work when you were trying to sleep because he didn’t have clean dress shirts? Are you willing to make exceptions for people who haven’t slept through the night in seven-and-a-half years? Because if that were a mitigating factor in naughtiness assessment, that would be awesome.

Does this guy actually work for you?

This is the elf on the shelf. At our house he is called Buddy. This little guy helps to keep our children in line because Buddy is essentially your informant and uses the threat of withholding toys as an incentive for getting the little people to march in order. Buddy is like a Cold War-era Stasi agent making sure everyone in the village toes the party line of goodness. Be good children, or Buddy the Elf will tell Santa about what you did with mommy’s lipstick. My friend Rebekah called Buddy a stabitty prison snitch, and I can sort of see her point. But I like him, except for the fact that I am forever forgetting to move him. Because (and maybe this falls under the why do you hate me category) why did you make one of the rules of having him that he needs to be in a new spot each morning in order to be discovered by the children? And every damn night I forget. I have had to make up some very creative stories about how Buddy only moved an inch last night in order to test their ability to observe crap. Thanks Buddy.

Can we take live animals off the table?
I don’t mean that literally. It’s not about eating them – or not eating them. I mean can we just agree that my house is currently not a good place for ponies or puppies or kittens or hamsters or swimmy things like fish or salamanders? We have a cat and the specter of a recently deceased dog. We’re good. So can you brief your minions that if my kids ask for a live animal on our annual lap-sitting/toy begging/photo op that they should just say no and shut them down? Tell them maybe next year and take a little pressure off of me? Help a momma out, please. Thanks a million.
﻿

And... That's what she said.

﻿ Is this OK?
Here’s the scenario. You come down the chimney or whatever (Kate says that technically what you’re doing is breaking and entering), and you find home-made cookies and a nice single malt. Next to the cozy chair and your snack, there are some carrots for the reindeer. Next to the carrots, 4 to 6 loads of laundry that require folding and putting away. Because if I was allowed to write you a letter asking you for things, I would ask for a few days off from the laundry. Not a year. Just a few days. If you’re real and you’re magic (and not in league with Randy the Laundry Fairy), then you won’t mind.